h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A lot of people on the news complaining they can't work because the schools are out.

Schools are not childcare facilities! They are the right of your child to get an education, which relies on having fabulous teachers to do it. I don't always agree with reasons for strikes, but without unions, who's going to stop 'them' walking all over people??

So suck it up, you knew it was coming, make alternative arrangements.

Equally, it's a business opportunity for out of school care providers. Offer to take the kids in for a fee, cram them in a cupboard, crates, under the stairs, or I find it helpful to get them out of the house for a really long run with lots of activities so they just sleep through the afternoon and don't interfere with my and time...

Well. Better come clean and say that DH and I are both on strike today. The children's schools are closed but they are old enough that it doesn't make much difference. And anyway we did have a good ten days' notice to sort out arrangements for their care if necessary.

But I think it's inevitable that schools are now valued for their childcare as much as for the education they deliver. Most parents have to go out to work to pay the bills and they can't do that without abandoning their children. It's hard enough as it is to find work that fits around the school day and holidays. I suspect most schools still don't get this; the assumption seems to be that parents will turn up to events during the school day, sometimes at the drop of a hat. But that can involve a significant amount of arrangement-making and eats into precious annual leave - which, as it is, doesn't come close to matching the number of days on which schools are closed anyway.

So, if I wasn't on strike, and I hadn't been able to make alternative arrangements, so I was having to use up a day of my annual leave to care for my children, or losing a day's pay, I would be complaining like mad. That's a day less on our summer holiday, or a school event I can't go to, or one fewer 'spare' day for when a child is ill. Yes I can have an unexpected day of fun with my kids today; it's not all doom and gloom. But for many people that's at the expense of either a day which would ordinarily have been used in some other way to be a parent, or at the expense of the loss of a day's earnings, which are needed to put food on the table or to be able to buy something nice for Christmas (which every parent wants to be able to do).

If we were starting an education system from scratch today, I don't think we'd go for a 9-3.30 day for only 39 weeks of the year, because that's a system that was set up to meet the needs of working families some 150 years ago. Times have changed and we'd go for something much more flexible, that would make occasional closures and/or absences (for staff as well as pupils) much less of an issue. But that's a nettle no government will grasp. It's much easier for a government with no mandate to abitrarily change the terms and conditions of several million workers.

Mol

Sigh. Yes, some parents really do use school as a daycare facility. I suspect they are a minority though, as usual giving a bad reputation to the others.

Are there no legal limits to the number of children school care providers can take?

But did you not realise that schools were responsible for the safety and upbringing of children. It is a schools responsibility to teach children morals, and how to behave, how to handle money, how to cook, all about the birds and the bees and any other skills or knowledge they need to survive in the real world.

How dare they close for a day?!

Yes I think childchare providers are limited to the number of children they can take - although when my mum was a childminder she could have as many children over 5 as she liked. That was in the 80s though!

If they're in a cupboard, no-one can count them! But 10 days notice is surely enough to arrange something?

"Yes, some parents really do use school as a daycare facility. I suspect they are a minority though"

You think only a minority of families have 2 working parents?

We're lucky in that t'Boy's school didn't close today. But if it had I would be further pulling my hair out at the fact that my work already is expecting me to do nights and weekends and has just cancelled the three days of annual leave I had booked off between now and christmas (all for attending school events during the day) because there is too much work to do. I can just imagine the response if I'd told them I had to take a day off to look after the kids.

Like it or not, parents these days do an enormous amount of juggling and planning months ahead where possible, and part of that planning involves the children being in school on school days during school hours.

Yes, I think 10 days should be sufficient to arrange something. But for a lot of people that will still be arranging to take a days' leave or lose a day's pay.

Schools *are* responsible for those things, when the parents are incapable, and when children need more instruction than their parents can provide. And it *really* angers me when parents are collectively blamed for not doing enough, when most parents are doing the best they can with limited resources, and when we have set up a society that consistently undermines parents and makes it harder to bring up their children.

Mol

Kelli, I appreciate everyone's circumstances are different, but could the problem be your work taking the p*ss?

I had to take time off for school events, I had to rearrange parent's 'evening' to 8am in the morning so I could speak to teachers, or do it over the phone and miss J's work on the wall, in one case I never saw the huge ferris wheel he built out of lego as they destroyed it before I could get there, although I do have a photo. I am lucky I have a good family support group, but if I hadn't, I wouldn't have complained about the strike, although I used to complain bitterly about 'teacher training days', as I can't see why they don't do that during school holidays!

I hear you, Mol, and you, Kelli. I'm now lucky enough that my two are old enough to look after themselves when this type of thing happens, but for me if i'd had children that I needed to take care of today I'd have been stuffed.

My company absolutely would not have allowed anyone a day off today or tomorrow (there is a blanket ban on that kind of thing at month end - which for me starts at least a week before the actual end) and it's the same for . We even have parents' "evenings" during office hours so as not to inconvenience the teachers too much (for which I have to take at least half a day for each girl) etc etc

I have no idea how parents who work or can't just take time off willy-nilly manage at all, especially if they can't afford childminder's fees (mine were huge when they were tiny, and German schools typically start at 8 and end at 2pm at the latest)

We're all in it together, though, right?

Kelli and I appear to work for the same company

I have a lot of sympathy for teachers and how people see their hours because I know that there is a lot more than classroom time involved. But I read this week that a lot of them get a day off for Christmas shopping... if only!!

Yes, don't get me wrong - I think the public sector workers are right that this shouldn't be a race to the bottom and I understand why they are striking - but it *is* difficult to manage for working parents and so they moan about it.

Mina, yes, my work is taking the p*ss - but I am far from alone in being a working mother who is doing all kinds of juggling to meet the needs of work and home and anything (like an unexpected day off) that throws one's planning off just makes it all that bit trickier.

When J started senior school I took a career break for 3 months, then went back part time, and yes found the unexpected days off when he couldn't cope so difficult I had to stop work completely. Perhaps I forget that not everyone has the luxury of stopping work. J has two working parents, one of us supporting the family home pretty much alone.

When he went to the special needs school it was a breath of fresh air, as they never seem to take any time off!

To me, "using school as a daycare facility" has definite negative undertones. In my ears, it sounds like leaving children there, no matter what they do provided they are under supervision of adults, and disregarding the fact that these adults are not childcarers (or whatever the terminology is).

Also I was thinking of some parents who are not necessarily working, and who try and leave their children at school for as long as possible just to be rid of them. Unfortunately these do appear to exist as well.

So no, I did not think only a minority of families have 2 working parents.